


Beneath the Waves and on the Wind

by Last_Haven



Series: Love Is [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Challenge Response, F/M, Fairy Tales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 11:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Last_Haven/pseuds/Last_Haven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the world was young, the Magician journeyed to find himself someone with whom he could spend his life. What he found was so much more than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beneath the Waves and on the Wind

**Author's Note:**

> Written for usxuk's Sweetheart Week over on livejournal. Prompt was 'Once Upon a Time'. Based very loosely on the Inuit story Raven and the Whale. Bonus points if you get the connections between both animals to the characters. Beta-read by the wonderful Ellarose C.

When the world was young and man was in its infancy, the Magician lived on the edge of the village. As a child, his mother taught him of magic and the ways of healing, something that made the villagers turn from him in fear. After his mother passed on, he found himself lonely in his small hut near the seashore. He watched as the people of the village grew up and started families, finding love and happiness in each other that the Magician never could find for himself.

After some years, he grew sick of the loneliness and set out to find a companion to ease his pain. Using his magic, he turned into a raven and flew across the vast forests and mountains, hoping that perhaps he might find someone there to befriend. Along the way, he visited many villages and met many new people, but none of them wanted to be friends with him. At each rejection, he grew more disheartened for the next step of his journey. He turned his wings from the forests and mountains, and towards the sea, hoping the people there might be different. Miles sped below his wings, but the rocky shore remained barren, not a soul in sight. The wind caught him and bore further out to sea; the Magician's wings grew sore, his lungs began to burn, and then, quite suddenly, he found the sea rising up to meet him.

The punch of the icy water smacked his world back into focus, then numbed him as his feathers soaked up water. The undertow caught his limbs and pulled him down until all he could see of the sun was a faint, glimmering splotch of light dancing high above him. Just as his eyes slipped closed, another, greater current caught him and pulled him back from the depths, sweeping him up. Everything became dark, but when he finally gave in and opened his maw for a desperate breath, it was not water that rushed in, but somewhat stale, fishy smelling air. He shed his spell and chose to lie upon the ground for a moment, gasping in great gulps of air with delicious relief until the shock began to wear off.

"Well, it seems I have a new visitor! Don't get many of those."

The voice was warm and cheery; when the Magician opened his eyes and gazed upward, he found a smiling maiden peering back at him. In all his travels, the Magician had never seen another woman like her—her hair was unfashionably short, barely brushing her shoulders, her face open and unafraid of him, but strangest of all was the faint halo of light that glimmered about her when she moved.

She giggled at him. "What's the matter, sir? Cat got your tongue?" she asked with a cheeky grin before straightening up. "Or rather, _whale_ got your tongue?"

"What?" he managed after a moment, picking himself up only with great effort.

"Easy there." The woman took pity on him and helped him sit up, although that didn't stop her from laughing again. "Anyway, I said whale—that's where you are now. Didn't you see the teeth and tongue when you were pulled in?"

"Forgive me for being distracted," the Magician retorted, but there was no heat in his words. Shock, exhaustion, and curiosity sapped any ire he might have felt to her. "Next time I nearly drown, I'll try to pay more attention."

The maiden laughed and slapped his back so hard his head snapped forward. "See to it! At any rate, you might as well get comfortable—we don't need more air for now, so we won't see the surface for some time."

She was right in the end; with little else that could be done from inside the whale, he began to talk to her to pass the time. She made for an interesting conversationalist, but she only gave a tight lipped, impish smile when he tried to discover her origins or anything to do with her oddities, such as the halo that appeared when she moved.

Oh, how she could move! When she tired of sitting, she stood, and when that bored her she began to hum and then dance. Not a simple shuffle of her feet or a sway of her hips, but great leaps, spins, and dips. The grace displayed in each gesture went beyond practice into pure talent; every move was lively and frenetic, or precise and sweeping. Never had he seen such dances, not once in all his travels. He watched in wonder as she finished one dance before quickly moving into another.

He forgot how to speak as he watched her sway until she stilled into a curious pose; one foot turned out, the other extended before her, her body turned to him with one hand resting above her heart while she extended the other to him. Unsure, he stared for a moment before she smiled and stretched her hand out further. "Won't you dance with me, my friend?"

His heart thudded against his ribs and he slowly uncurled his fist and lifted his hand to rest in hers; her smile morphed into a full on grin and she pulled him to his feet.

"I don't know how to dance," he admitted as she began to tug him in place behind her, wrapping one of his hands against her waist while she posed the other into an identical position as her, raised up into the air.

"Really?"

"Well, at least not like you dance."

She winked at him. "I'll go slow, then."

True to her word, she showed him the steps first—an easy repetition of steps from side to side—and then began to work on the movement of his arms until he could dance without error, both of them practically galloping through the moves despite being breathless from laughing.

"Where did you learn to dance like that?" he finally managed as he pulled away.

Despite the loss of her partner, she continued to sway. "That is a secret," she giggled before doing a few quick spins. "But, to be truthful, these dances were always meant for ordinary humans—the teachers, however, failed to find a way to pass on the lessons."

The Magician cocked his head to the side and frowned. "People were meant to do these dances?"

"Yes—they are parts of rituals, you see. But, I'm afraid I'm the only one left who remembers these dances."

"Well," he murmured, considering the Dancer carefully. "I suppose that means you have a duty to pass your knowledge on."

"Oh no," she answered, stopping her dance altogether as she gazed at him seriously. "I can never leave here. I have always been here and here I will stay." And with that, she went back to dancing and refused to answer his questions. All except one.

"Did you mean what you said?"

She paused to consider him. "That depends—what did I say?"

He colored and looked at his feet. "Did you mean it when you called me your friend? We've only just met."

For once, he was not disappointed. She smiled gently at him and pressed a hand to his cheek. "Wouldn't you like to be my friend?"

The smile on his face felt unfamiliar, but it was there all the same. "I… yes. I would like that. I would like it greatly."

"Then let me dance for you some more—it'll pass the time at least!"

At long last, the whale came to the surface and fresh air flooded in. The Magician thought of leaving, but when he saw the Dancer smiling at him, looking at him with the warmth that he longed for so badly, he merely rose and joined her in her dance.

They remained like that for some time—their days spent talking and dancing. She taught him many more dances, until at last she declared she had nothing else to teach him. She gazed at him with such pride and affection that he couldn't stop himself from bending down to press his lips against hers. She paused, and for a moment he worried that she would reject him, but instead she slowly wound her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. That night, as he watched her golden light glimmer as she moved above him, he knew that he would love her until the day he died. He swore to himself that when the next time the whale rose to the surface, he would transform and take her with him so that he could show her all the wonders to be found on land and in the sky.

He nearly missed his chance; the whale surfaced early in the morning, surprising him awake. He was almost too slow, but he managed to grab her and transform just in time to slip past the whale's teeth.

The minute they escaped, his beloved Dancer shrieked as though she was cleaved in two and fell limp in his arms. He was so startled, he forgot his plans to show her the lands from the sky and instead swopped down to the shore.

As he descended, the halo about her vanished. He thought she was growing pale for a moment before he realized she wasn't going pale, but rather completely transparent. He gazed at her in utter horror as she began to fade away.

"Oh, you fool," she sighed with a smile, tenderly placing the palm of her hand against his cheek. "You didn't get it, did you? I was the soul of the whale, but now the whale is dead and I shall disappear."

Something in him was dying with every detail of her fading from his sight, he was certain of it. "I'm sorry," he sobbed, scrambling to think of anything he knew from all the magic his mother taught him that could help her. Nothing came to mind and it was all he could keep to do from breaking down and weeping. "I—I didn't know!"

Her gaze drifted from him to the sky. "I should have told you, but I—I had waited so long for someone to talk to… Oh, please, don't forget me, and don't forget the dances I taught you! If you do then I shall truly be gone and I…"

"I swear! I shall remember and dance them always, but please, please don't go!"

Before she could answer, she vanished completely. His arms remained coiled uselessly in the air as he gazed down at the space she had just laid. He raised his hands up to his face and began to cry into his palms.

The Magician remained on the rocky beach for a long time, consumed in his sorrow as he played over every memory of her he had in his mind, trying desperately to memorize every detail. As he remembered, he climbed to his feet and began to dance, hoping the practice would ingrain the memories better. Gradually, he began to dance faster and faster, singing the songs she had hummed to him as well.

As he danced, people from a local village found him. They watched in awe as he performed the whale soul's dances with all the grace the Dancer had shown. When he finally finished, the bravest among them walked up to him and begged him to teach them his dance.

Staring at them, he felt strangely hollowed out, but oddly better. He nodded and began to show them the moves the Dancer once taught him. As he instructed them, he remembered how the Dancer once told him that her dances had always been meant for humans. _Perhaps,_ he wondered as he corrected one person's stance, _perhaps this is what she would want._ Maybe he could forgive himself if he showed her dances to every village, teaching the dances to everyone so she would never fear being forgotten.

Once he finished teaching all the dances to the village, he moved onto the next village and taught the people there. He began to travel once more, heading to new settlements to teach the dances and songs of the Dancer until at last he returned to the shore an old, bent man. In the distance, he saw the white of a whale's spray and smiled to himself before he closed his eyes for the last time.

As his body sat there, it took on a golden glow and vanished from sight.


End file.
